Between Friends: A Writing Project
by MyMagentaPeach
Summary: 6 Friends. 1 Prompt. 6 Days. 500 Words. - A writing project between Different Child, ficdirectory, pi-on-a-skateboard, Tara621, PenMagic & MyMagentaPeach. Each chapter is a one-shot from a different week's prompt with different characters. Updates weekly!
1. Be Prepared

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee.

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**A/N: **My lovely readers, this collection belongs with a writing project I have recently joined. It will be all one-shots, with very much varying topics and characters involved, of ideally around 500 words. Knowing myself, there will be quite some amount of Klaine, which probably so will turn out to be an understatement.

So, yeah, one-shots, that's why it is listed as a complete story, but there will be weekly updates. And no pesky cliffhangers:)

The system works like this:

All writers involved receive the same prompt, which can be anything really, on a Thursday, from someone within the group, and we all complete and post our fills until the following Wednesday latest.

A BIG THANK YOU to ...

**Different Child**

**Ficdirectory**

**pi-on-a-skateboard**

**Tara621**

**and PenMagic**

... for allowing me to come along on this ride. I am really excited to be writing with and for you, and to read how your imagination responds to prompts. It is the most exciting part to me about this project, being allowed to see imagination work away with the same words into half a dozen different directions.

My gorgeous readers, how about checking out what **Different Child, Ficdirectory, pi-on-a-skateboard, Tara621 and PenMagic **have done with the weekly prompt! In the collections already longer running this weekly prompt is Chapter 28.

This week the prompt was so perfect I just had to use it as the title for this one-shot.

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**Prompt **(28)**: **Be Prepared

**Character: **Sebastian Smythe (Season 3, _'Michael'_)

**Words: **742

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**Be Prepared**

Sebastian Smythe, renaissance man, all around talent, man of the world. That is how many people see him. It is, in a big part, how he likes to be seen.

There is a problem with it though. The problem is …, the problem is huge to him, a tiny one, non-existent to most others.

People like to talk, less to think. But those who do, those people …

... people think …

'_Sebastian Smythe, what an eloquent boy.'_

_Sebastian Smythe, good student.'_

_Sebastian Smythe, nice voice.'_

'_Sebastian Smythe, what a douchbag.'_

People think many things about Sebastian Smythe but before today, before today no one had ever asked him how he thinks about himself. His parents having forbidden him years ago, the moment he came out, to ever talk about himself, to even think about himself again, in _that way_.

So Sebastian, Sebastian is not prepared, not prepared in the least for the talk he is about to have with the man standing in his dorm room at Dalton right now.

Heck, he does not even know the guy. Sure he has _heard_ of him, who has not? But he has never seen him in person.

Imposing? Threatening? No, it is not any way Sebastian Smythe would ever describe the man standing only a few feet away from him. And yet, there is something about this man, something Smythe can only determine after chancing a long hard look – and then it dawns on him. Unlike Sebastian himself, this man, _'He is prepared – for whatever he came here to say, do.'_ And then Sebastian is swallowing hard, taking a half step back and for the first time fully meeting the man's eyes.

"Kid, stop fidgeting. I ain't here to take your head off, even though you tried to …, what was it you were exactly going for with that slushy?"

"_Ain't _your business," Sebastian says with a snarky, fake grin, trying to take some steam out of the man's drive.

"Kurt said you'd be like that."

"Like what?" Sebastian asks, eyes narrowed, Sebastian clearly in defence mode.

"Tryin' to gain some upper hand whichever way you think you can," the man answers with not an unkind smile and a shake of his head.

Sebastian gets ready to throw some cheap, snarky comment the man's way when …

… the other just raises his hand. "Cut the crap, kid. Normally I would be talkin' to your parents, not you. I made'n exception for you."

Sebastian is just staring now, confused.

"Why did you do it?" the man asks, look on his face for the first time truly sinister to Sebastian, for reasons he himself does not understand. It might be the unexpected kindness still present somewhere in the man's eyes and voice.

'Isn't he supposed to fucking hate me?' He thinks, and so his answer is a reflex more than anything. "I wanted Blaine."

"Bullshit, kid."

"Oh, so you know what I want, but I don't?" Sebastian is starting to sound as defensive as he ever gets.

"I know you are about as interested in Blaine as Kurt is in slow-dancing with Santana."

"You don't know me," Sebastian says angrily.

"So you are not the guy who tried to throw a slushy in my boy's face and hit his boyfriend instead? You are not the guy that has had my kid in angry and frustrated and desperate tears the night of the West Side Thingy opening, for about an hour, before I told him to just go talk it out with his boyfriend?"

"SO WHAT?"

"I'm here to ask you to stop messing with my family."

"Mr. Hummel, frankly, I don't care."

"About Blaine _or_ Kurt, I know."

"NO! About what YOU want!"

Burt Hummel lets out a sigh, running a hand over his bald head, "You know, you don't need to be this angry all the time."

"I AM NOT!" Sebastian outright shouts.

"Sure, kid. Sure." Burt says, making to leave.

"And stop calling me that."

"Kid?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, whether you like that, or not, it's what you are. A lost kid," and then Burt is out of the door, it closing behind him as Sebastian stands, mouth gaping still staring at the spot Burt just stood for the last seven minutes.

The sadness in Burt's last words is still ringing in Sebastian's ears as he reaches up and twists his hands in his hair in frustration, letting out a growling whine.


	2. Clear

**A/N: **So here my fill for the very first prompt ever. Needed to start catching up some time, so why not today:)

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**Prompt** (1): The exact moment that two best friends fell in love.

**Characters**: I hope you will love guessing a little.

**Words**: 839 (first I thought I would get stuck at 300, and then the story just kept expanding on paper)

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**Clear**

242 days ago

People don't get me. I mean really, it's fine, it's ... it's fine. I mean, it really is. It would be, it could be, if ... if being me wasn't so ..., so damn lonely. Life is weird, school is much weirder. There isn't even someone I want to be around anymore. No one. Sometimes not even myself. It's what scares me most.

102 days ago

Has it really been months? It feels like we met just yesterday. I am not alone anymore. Not alone. I still hurt most days, sure, but, someone is there now, someone who wants to be there for ..., for me. That's at least what it feels like when we hug, when I am held, and allowed to hold on. It's not even that we have in common all that much, we don't, but that actually is what makes it even greater. I have never in my life learned so much new things from another person in such a short time, and, and ... learned so much more about myself.

84 days ago

Sometimes we just hold hands. Just like that. It feels so good to be touched in that way, to know there is someone who wants to touch me, in that way, and not just touch ... but hold on. Someone who wants to hold on ... to me.

29 days ago

Is this how friends feel for each other? I swear I felt a spark today when walking down the hallway our hands touched, and intertwined. All I really know is I am so happy, it makes me so happy when we are close. I can't even explain it, I mean I am not sure I really understand myself, but when ..., when we are close everything feels like so much more. In all the right ways. I know it must have been just my imagination but ... when we hugged today, I know I held on extra tight, and it was the best feeling I have ever known, even if it was just me imagining it, him holding on extra tight too.

Today

They are walking around the Dalton grounds.

Just having visited some friends who still go here, wanting to make the most of already being here, they quickly agreed, only minutes ago, to take a hike around the lake.

They walk in comfortable quiet for a while, hands holding, fingers intertwined, just listening to the birds singing again after a long winter.

"Do you remember when you walked me home a couple of weeks ago?" the brown-haired boy asks somewhat shyly.

"Yeah, sure. I wish I could do that more often."

"Me too," Kurt lets the moment of silence linger comfortably between them, smiles on both their faces. "You hugged me before you left."

"Um, ... I always hug you?" Blaine stops in the middle of the path, Kurt does too, turning his body fully to look at Blaine, hands still holding on to each other, "I love hugging you, Kurt. Was that not okay?" Blaine says swallowing and looking down, blushing a little already as he looks back up and over at Kurt through his eyelashes.

"Can you, would you hug me like that again?" Kurt half blurts out.

Before Kurt can hide his face in his hands it is tugged already against a warm shoulder, and Kurt finds himself letting out a heavy breath, arms coming around Blaine's waist, hugging back as tight as he can. "I didn't imagine it," Kurt lets out in a whisper, closely followed by a small sob.

Blaine lifts his own head from Kurt's shoulder as soon as he hears it, intently trying to find Kurt's gaze, draw it back onto himself, somehow.

As their eyes meet, Blaine's hands running soothingly up and down Kurt's back, he hums softly "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing's wrong," Kurt replies, still hiccupping but already brushing away the tears with the backs of his hands, Blaine holding Kurt close with his own arms coming around Kurt's waist now. "I am just so happy. I thought ... I thought I had imagined it."

"Imagined what?" Blaine asks, still a confused expression on his face.

Kurt blinks away some more tears, obscuring his vision, then opens them again, wide, finds Blaine's, and finds himself saying what he had felt, known, but not quite dared to, already 29 days ago, still completely overwhelmed, "You holding on to me. You wanting to hold on to me."

Blaine's gaze looks even softer now to Kurt with the unshed sheen of tears in it, and Kurt does not know how he knows, because no one has ever looked at him like this, he is sure, but he can feel it, his own heart hammering with the same emotion laid open in Blaine's eyes, "I will always want to hold you."

No one knows who moves first but when their lips meet for the first time it is warm and wet and soft and salty. It is new.

Everything feels new all over .


	3. Spaces

A/N: I have written this particular character literally only a couple of times before, and never before in that part of her life, so I am really curious what you guys will make of this. Can't wait to hear you thoughts.

xo M

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**Prompt** (29): Hearing Loss

**Character**: Quinn (Early Season 3)

**Words**: 762

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** Spaces**

When after the concert the ringing in her ears, and slight drowsy numbness in her brain that night, does not stop, well, she is not worried.

It is not the first time she has been dragged to a concert and needed a night's or day's sleep after to allow her body to recover, especially her hearing.

It had not been what she had expected to happen when she joined the Skanks, _'Being dragged off to join extracurricular activities,'_ she has since, usually with an eye roll, mumbled to herself more than once when one of the other girls had suggested whatever thoughtless activity to pursue and waste hours and whole days with. _'School hours are there for that.'_

Skipping class to smoke or just hang under the bleachers by the football field has made up more of her time since the school year started than actually going to class.

It is one of the things she genuinely likes about being part of the group, _'No feigned interest in anything other than what they actually do care about.' _But that is also part of her biggest problem with the group.

And she has no idea if it is because she has spent so much time the last two years around people with actual invested interest in music, _'Fucking Glee!' But _what she does have to pretend to but does not really like, at all, … is the girls taste in music.

And so it had been torture again tonight, another 70s reminiscent punk rock concert presented to her to attend.

Yes, one of those including a band with maybe not even such terrible lyrics, but who would know? No one will ever be able to tell, with performances consisting of loud, noisy instruments and the cacophony of even louder screams, _'For hours_,_'_ Quinn thinks rolling her eyes. She has found herself doing that even more these days than when she was in Glee, and that is saying something.

Only the free booze for chicks had made her come along at all tonight, well, that and not wanting to sit around alone, _'It must be better than that.'_

Now sitting back home "Finally alone," in her room, her ears still ringing, she is starting to have her doubts about that.

She picks up _Slaughterhouse V_ from her nightstand and starts reading, now that she has taken a long shower to get her skin and her hair to stop reeking of smoke she can actually stand being around herself again.

'_Why could I not lose my sense of smell while in there,'_ it had been vile – those hundreds of people crammed into that small space, for three hours.

'_I'm not ever going back there. Not even if Kurt Cobain personally comes back from the dead to resurrect grunge.'_ And Quinn has always loved Nirvana, so that's saying something.

Reading is the only thing that helps, she has found out the last two times this has happened, her ears ringing and ringing for hours, her hearing muffled for half of the next day.

Drowning the sounds distorted and distorting out with her own thoughts is not nearly enough in these hours, but someone else's flowing nicely in lines upon lines of phrases and sentences, paragraphs of text, whole books, it works for her.

She had never really tried to invest interest in it before, reading, others' writing.

We do need trying though to find what we love, it hardly ever just finds us.

But Quinn had been so sick of trying for a long while already, always having been shot down before whenever she had tried anything that had felt even remotely like herself, and not like the things others expected from her; her parents, her church's congregation, her teachers.

Stories are her life, suddenly, mind-blowing obviously, they are what within only a couple of weeks, has her caring about something again, caring about herself again too.

So far she has only scribbled down a few lines in her new paper notebook, she has bought a week and a half ago. It does not even have lines. Her mind is already full of stories.

It is her favorite part about it all, about the "music", the concerts, the ringing in her ears, the books, the notebook and her writing: the blank space. The space she finds in those pages, waiting to be filled, a space to be herself, no need to pretend to be, no need to be anything, pink hair or not, Beth's mom or not, Glee Club member or not.

'_Just me. Me.' _


	4. Friends and Family

**Prompt **(2): Most memorable/meaningful summer fling

**Characters**: Wes and Mercedes, with a healthy side of Klaine:)

**Words**: 577 (closest to the actually aimed at word limit yet:)

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**Friends and Family **

Wes cannot say he ever expected it to happen, hoped for it, dreamed of it even, sure, but actually falling for someone like this, sudden, deep and over ' … ice cream and hot chocolate,' it feels like he is still dreaming.

They have really only exchanged one word so far, Blaine having brought him along and Kurt Mercedes.

"Hi."

"Hi."

Since then they have been sitting here, side by side eating their ice cream and listening to their friends, Kurt and Blaine, squabble adorably about their exact summer plans.

That is until Kurt turns to Wes, "What will you be up to this summer? When are you leaving for college?"

With a quick smile into the round he answers, "I'll be here until the end of August, I'm moving in with my grandmother, next week actually, to help her out around the house, since my parents are away. And also because I want to spend some more time with her. I was with her all the time before I started Dalton. I can't imagine not seeing her that much anymore at all, once I've moved." He lets out a heavy sigh.

He looks up in surprise when he feels the warm gentle touch of a hand on his shoulder. "I know how you feel," Mercedes says with a soft but also very sad smile, "I lived with my grandma for most of last year, until she got so sick she had to go to hospital. I think it's amazing you want to spend your time with her. "

Wes is already looking sad when he asks, fearing he suspects correctly, "How is your grandmother now?"

"Oh, um, she died a while back. It's okay really. I mean, it's not, but it is. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Wes says, smiling sadly at her, as he takes her right hand leaving his shoulder gently into his left.

It seems they already have forgotten Kurt and Blaine are even still there.

And so they keep talking, for hours. Kurt and Blaine just sitting with them, cuddled up, listening to their friends childhood stories about christenings, and Thanksgivings, Christmases and New Years, school holidays and weekends spent with their grandparents.

When the four of them part they agree to meet up again soon.

In the end it is four weeks before they actually do, the four of them that is.

Kurt and Blaine see each other all the time, but what they do not know until that next day spend together, so do Wes and Mercedes.

Wes's grandmother, turns out, used to be a singer. Mercedes meets her the first time a week after Wes has moved in with her. And Mercedes cannot remember the last time she felt so close to and understood by someone she just met.

That goes for both of them, Wes and his grandmother.

The evenings are all theirs alone, Wes's grandmother going to bed early every night.

There are dates, and kisses, but both of them have the best time staying in during the days' heat, together with Wes's grandmother, cooking and talking, singing and just being.

Those days and the cool evenings, after almost too hot summer days, on a porch-swing, kissing, cuddling, humming along to melodies on the radio together, years from now, they still will be some of both their favorite memories of any summer ever.

They are friends now, and more.

They will be friends then.


	5. Essence

**A/N: **Feeling anxious myself, so this turned out a little anxious too. Or so it feels to me. I am sorry I am a little behind on my reviewing. These last days have been very stressful. I will try my best tomorrow.

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**Prompt **(30)**: **sorry seems to be the hardest word

**Character: **Santana

**Words: **669

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**Essence **

For a long time she did not think she could feel it, let alone express it in any way, not sincerely at least – mostly because she had, early on in life, grown sick and tired of being asked to apologize.

She had seen adults around her do it all the time, for anything and everything and essentially, she had felt, for nothing; 'For their opinions, for having own thoughts, an own point of view,' she had found herself thinking, watching yet another family dinner, painfully civilized, end with goodbyes not expressed in hugs or even kisses on cheeks, but in brisk nods and only half-wished to be taken sincere right now invitations to come by for dinner again, soon...ish.

Her mom had been the only one able to cheer her up, every time, after another such evening, smile warm and hug truly affectionate.

It is her mom, too, she comes to first when she feels the sincere urge to say it, to say sorry somehow, anyhow, but whichever way, sincerely, when her and Brittany have that "argument" – one which Santana knew she was wrong to argue as soon as, no, even before she had done it.

'When you stand in front of me with this smile,' filled with pride and hope and ... love, 'there should not be a single reason left in the world to disagree with you. I don't want to disagree with your love, Brit.' Santana does not want to disagree with her own feelings either, with her own love, her love for Brittany.

But there had been that damn knot in her chest all over as soon as her brain had pulled Brittany's actions into perspective, had made sense of the print on the shirt, _Lebanese_. And Santana had not thought at all, but acted on instinct, self-preservation, fear, pain, instead of love.

But the knot had not left all day, and so standing in the kitchen with her mother, putting away the last cleaned dishes after dinner, Santana asks, "How can I ..., how would you, how would you apologize if you had hurt someone's feelings?"

"Depends on who it is," her mother says with a warm smile, turning back to Santana from the kitchen cupboard she has just closed.

Santana slumps back against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest, leaning against it and letting out a heavy sigh before answering, "A good friend. A really, REALLY, good, important friend."

"Important to the popular kids in school or important to you?"

"Really, really important, to me."

"So you want to say sorry?"

Santana nods, features serious and still very tense, hands beginning to be fidgety.

"You don't want to tell me what exactly happened," it is not a question, the woman with the kind smile knows her daughter well enough to know, her daughter wants to tackle life herself, every day as much as she can; even though for some reason the mother cannot quite make out yet, there appears to be something very specific, '... a something that scares her to bits.'

Santana's eyes flicker to the kitchen floor for a moment, closing for seconds only the thoughts come flooding her senses, 'I want to tell you so bad, Mom. But ... it's too scary. The idea of losing you and Dad over who I love ...' Santana snaps herself back out of her own thoughts and looks back up with pleading in her eyes intense and almost begging.

When her mother takes Santana into her arms, she can feel it again, that honest warmth that makes her feel like one day she will be able to tell them, tell her mother for sure, 'I love Brittany, Mom. I have never been in love with anyone like I am in love with her.'

For now hugging back, fiercely, has to be enough, and in the moment her mother whispers softly into the quiet of the room, Santana still in her arms, "I have an idea or two," it is, enough.


	6. To whom it may concern

**Prompt** (31): the right place for love (a line taken from the Robert Frost poem _Birches_, I thought you might like to know, I love that poem, I did not tell you before in prompting, so I would not push your mind in a certain direction. I hope that was alright.)

**Character**: I think in this case it improves the read to not instantly know. I'd love to know your thoughts on that :)

**Words**: 655

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_To whom it may concern,_

_Because I really don't know anymore who will care – care about me, ... in the end. This is not the right place for love. It's all I really know. I can't anymore, can't see me, can't hold on, and I ... I wish I could, but I can't move forward, can't move most days ... at all. _

_Not knowing yourself, not knowing myself enough to ever want anything enough to really fight. I can't fight, I don't know what for. I ... I can't._

_And it's not like people don't care at all about me, just, just, no one has ever cared enough when I needed them. And now, now I don't know how to care anymore. _

_They make, people in my life make everything such a big deal, the tiniest things are blown so out of proportion, they have twisted my insides and I don't know how to untangle them. I get panic attacks some days trying to choose a shirt to wear. Because they have made me believe it, I cannot not believe it anymore, it has nothing to do with reason either, not anymore, all I can think, all I can feel is, I am wrong. Whatever I choose whatever I do, it is the only thing they have taught me about me, it's all I am to them, wrong. Wrong by nature, I guess, I cannot believe they ever wanted me. I ... I just can't. And they are all I have, and they don't want me, not me. _

_This is not the right place for love. Do not get me wrong, please, not you too, whoever, whenever you are reading this. I need to hold on to the thought that I left something of me in this world, of me, not what they had turned me into. More than anything I wish it was, I wish it so much as could be, I could be a place of love ... and it is not, that house I grew up in, ... and I am not._

_The truth is, my truth is, ... anywhere they are I cannot be. And they are everywhere, all inside me, always with me, part of me. And that will never change, and I will never be enough, not for them, not for me. I am twisted. _

_All I am left with is wishing, all I have been left with for years. It is not enough anymore. I am not, and I will never be, not enough, never enough of me._

_Family is supposed to be a place for love, the place of love. Right? Right?_

_All my family does is make it impossible for me to breathe, make it impossible for me to think ... about anything. All the talking my parents do, all the shouting, all it does is tear up my insides, and then ball them up in my chest, compress them with my blood and guts deep into my chest. To them I am like a car on a scrapyard, a thing made out of not all individually dysfunctional parts, but all of them put together utterly useless, junk._

_Maybe I am not to them like that at all, but how can that even still matter if it is how they make me feel, like a thing that is, when looked at in all the parts making it up, utterly useless, scrap, waste, junk – there to, at best, be torn apart for parts still wanted by somone. It is what they have been doing to me for years anyway._

_I am done being made to feel like the scrapyard for their junk._

_I am done being junk, too._

_I am done being. _

_I am done._

_I wish to leave love more than anything, to someone, ... anyone. I wish I had love to have and to give. It is all I ever wanted. I don't. _

_Lucy Quinn_

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A/N: Just FYI, should you be interested, I am turning this one-shot into a two-shot, or so, to give some of the context I think this letter was written and is read in, and by whom. :)M

To my fellow writers: I am SO SORRY I am still behind on reviewing your work. My internet still comes and goes as it pleases. I haven't been home the last weeks, but I will get back there in a couple of days and the internet connection should be just fine again then, and latest then I will make up for it, hopefully even before.


	7. Take a look

**Prompt** (32): Everyone is fighting

**Character**: Brody

**Words**: 472

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**Take a look**

It is like it always used to be. Only, it is not, and he is not, not at all.

People might think so, but this has nothing to do with Rachel, is not a thing she brought on with her harsh words, brimming over with disgust rather than disappointment, which, to be honest, hurts him most.

He wonders how it began, how things like this begin and then ... then keep happening, although that might be the easiest part to understand really. Just motions following like waves one the other. 'I wish I could stop. Stop it all.' He cannot see how he really could now. No matter how hard he wishes he did.

It is second nature these days, the retreat into the shower, the scrubbing.

In his head there are still the words echoing, the words he had grown used to hearing, the things he had grown used to being called, a long time ago already.

They echo louder inside him, he cannot shake the feeling, every time he stands scrubbing his skin raw in the shower. Every time.

"_He is a useless shit, look at him. Worthless, useless shit, wanting to dance all the time. The next time I catch him sing one of those fucking queer showtunes I'll ...," _Brody only remembers sounds after that. The sounds of his father's hand making contact with skin, already cried raw, his mother's, his own.

Brody cannot forget all those days, mornings after those nights, every new bruise on his mother's skin making him promise himself tighter to take her away from him, to take care of her.

And he has and he does now.

And he does not want to sell his body, but, "... but who is Rachel to judge, ...she has no right to judge. She never even took the time to get to know me."

That day, Brody's face, usually red from having been rubbed raw in the shower for minutes and minutes on end like the rest of his body, is still burning with the tracks his tears, unending today, have made. The desperate attempt to will them, _make _them, go away ... failed, as he steps back out of the shower, insides feeling so overly full and so very empty at the same time.

His apartment stays almost deadly quiet that night, filled with nothing but the sounds of his sobs occasionally breaking free from a throat closed up, a boy choking in his own skin.

All motion remaining the rise and fall of the covers he is curled up under - clutching to himself, trying, fighting to hold on to the boy, the person he cannot allow himself to doubt still is, _'... somewhere,'_ - and the new tears redrawing tracks on his skin, still feeling as raw as his insides.


	8. Love to remember

**Prompt **(33)**: **"Whose little boy is that?"

**Characters: **Blaine and Kurt

**Words: **788

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**Love to remember **

"Granpa. Granpa Blaine! Will you read me a story?"

"Benjamin," Blaine, sitting in his favourite spot by the highest window, overlooking their backyard, says with a smile. "Of course."

The boy is already in his grandfather's arms, hugging him tightly when the answer reaches his ears, the boy instantly letting out a little squeal.

Granpa Blaine, these days, granpa Kurt had explained to Benjamin, a while ago, is not always up for reading stories to him.

Benjamin's enthusiastic entrance is followed by the much calmer footsteps of three adults following him into the living room.

Kurt just stands smiling at the scene, together with his and Blaine's daughters, Alexa and Dana.

Alexa walks over to her son and her father, "Hello, Dad," she places a kiss on Blaine's forehead. "How are you today?" Dana waves her "Hello," to her father, Blaine, still standing next to Kurt.

The small boy, just turned four, has already made himself comfortable in his grandfather's lap, waiting for the story he has been looking forward to all week, since their last visit to his favourite grandparents' home.

"Do you know how this story starts?" Blaine asks with a wide smile as everyone is settled down comfortably and Kurt has handed Blaine the book they had talked about reading to Benjamin today, during lunch.

"Once upon a time ...?" Benjamin asks with a knowing, bright smile, filled with excitement not even attempted to hide, knowing his grandpa Blaine knows him all too well for it to make sense. And Benjamin really loves how well his grandfathers both know him; his favourite books, his favourite toys, his favourite food, and especially his favourite cookies. _Granpa Blaine makes the best cookies ever_, Benjamin thinks to himself with his smile widening even more. He used to make them for Kurt all the time, now it has become a rarer occasion, but still at least twice a year. It is a promise unbroken to this day, as long as Kurt and Blaine have known each other, ever since that first Christmas together.

"That's right," Blaine says smiling brightly back. Benjamin has been going through a fairy tale phase lately, and both Blaine and Kurt have obliged gladly.

Today's story is _The Snow Queen_, and Blaine more tells it than reads from the pages. He has been doing this after all for almost 54 years by now, read and told stories, not to Benjamin of course, but first he and Kurt had started telling stories too each other at night, over the phone or in person, in person as often as they could. And then they had told stories to their nieces and nephews and finally to their own children and now, now Benjamin.

They sit for quite a while, all five of them, smiling and frowning in anticipation, listening and telling, the five of them together a versatile sound-machine creating a unique soundscape. It is a family thing Burt had first started with Kurt, a long, long, time ago.

And all the while that sense of love is filling them, love and warmth only trust and closeness build over years can ever bring forward so effortlessly.

Benjamin and Kurt are the ones who sense it, really sense it, before it can be seen with the naked eye in the slight shift, the growth of tension in Blaine's posture. Change.

"Granpa?" Benjamin whispers, eyes wide with as much surprise and confusion as his grandfather's face reveals now as well.

"Dad?" Alexa asks, tears in her eyes. She knows she should not be crying every time this happens, but emotions deep are not a thing that easily controlled. She still wonders, most days, how her fathers do it, ... hold on, go on.

"Dad?" Dana echoes her sister's sadness.

"Whose little boy is that?" Blaine's voice, unexplainably only having deepened and softened with age, hums, previous pure gentleness broken now by genuine confusion, all stories ever told to the little boy in his arms ... forgotten, in one moment.

Benjamin jumps off his grandfather's lap, who is looking at him like he is a complete stranger.

"He is our's, Honey," Kurt says patiently, hands gently carding through Blaine's grey hair, then cupping Blaine's cheeks gently. "His name is Benjamin. He is our grandson."

Blaine smiles wide, "Don't be silly, Love. We are 22."

"And you're happy," Kurt says softly.

"We are happy. Right?"

"Right," they are both still smiling as Kurt embraces his husband. With each other they are happy. They are lucky really, they have always been, deep down in their cores, happy ... together. That is not lost easily, love this deep holds, for a long time, through a lot of things breaking everything else.

* * *

A/N: Good news, I am fully back online now.


	9. Out Of The Ordinary?

**A/N:**

WARNING!

My writing is really weird these days.

So … possibly none of what you are about to read will make any sense. Gosh, do I hope you can disagree and, whatever your personal judgement, most of all enjoy this.

* * *

**Prompt** (34): Write in a genre or voice you are not normally comfortable in. (Which means for me an attempt at a comedy-mystery; is that even a real genre or have I just been watching too much Supernatural?)

**Characters:** Klaine, Warblers, Brittana (Season 2)

**Words: **1326 (…totally went overboard with it this time, oops? There was just this story idea that DEMANDED to be written, no matter the cost or outcome.)

* * *

**Out Of The Ordinary? **

It is the first weekend after 'The Night of Neglect'.

The Warblers are in midst of preparations for their next charitable performance. And so it is a weekend filled with rehearsals, time, Kurt and Blaine would otherwise spend alone, together, in one of their dorm rooms, exploring minds … and more; exploring what it can mean to love someone, because although neither has said it yet, they both, for themselves, know they do, love the other.

For most of the rehearsals the council has agreed to allow informal attire, so no uniforms required, but earlier at lunch today Wes had announced the council's decision to do several runs in uniform this afternoon. And so now, two hours later, The Warblers are standing in full dress and full formation in their practice room, well, almost full formation.

"Thad, would you go have a look where Jeff and Trent are?"Wes asks after the first run through without them. "It just does not sound right without them here. Why are they late anyway?" he inquires calmly into the round, … but all he is met with are shrugs.

Thad is about to head out the door when Wes says, "Okay, from the top."

The boys start the opening chords, but the sound dies away as soon as Thad opens the door and steps … aside, two figures, decidedly _out_ of uniform, stepping into the room in the next moment.

Thad is still standing there just gapping at them as he pushes the door shut again, the rest of the Warblers all sporting similar expressions until Blaine finally asks, "What happened to you two?"

Because here they are, Jeff and Trent, dripping wet and out of uniform, and not in much else either, Jeff only wearing boxers, Trent in a white undershirt and boxers of his own.

"I have never seen anything like it," Trent says in a flat voice, eyes still wide.

"Not possible," Jeff adds, both of them staring more off into space than anywhere else.

Trent finally comes to a little more, "We were on our way back here, when we thought we saw something. Something …."

"… not possible," Jeff adds once more.

"I know! Right?" Trent nods several times.

"Yeah," Jeff agrees.

"Guys! Try and make sense, please, to the rest of us too?" Nick says, softly, worry in his eyes.

"Sorry," Trent mumbles.

"Yeah," Jeff agrees, almost instantly echoed by Trent.

"Yeah."

"You were out by the lake?" Blaine asks, guessing from their drenched appearance. Receiving only hesitant nods he turns to Wes, "I think we should go look ourselves."

"Maybe Blaine is right," Wes states quickly to the whole group. "I mean, I hate for us to stop practice, but, under these circumstances."

So the Warblers set out to see for themselves what all of this is about. Nick taking Jeff's hand, and Jeff intuitively taking Trent's, the two of them are washed out of the room with the rest of the Warblers.

"So where exactly did you see … whatever you saw?" Wes asks, not willing to stumble around blindly for the rest of the practice time. "I mean," shrugging off his Blazer and offering it to Trent, Jeff already wearing Nick's, "… your uniforms, how … where did you lose them?"

"We did not exactly _lose _them," Jeff whispers, and Nick only more concerned now squeezes his hand tighter.

Trent swallows before he adds, "We were both early for afternoon practice, so we went for a walk by the lake to catch some fresh air after all of yesterday too already inside our practice room. That was when we saw it!"

The group is just rushing past two boys in Dalton uniforms, making out against the wall, a sight not totally common, but heard of at Dalton, especially at the weekends, with less teachers around to reprimand, so no one pays much attention, all in thoughts when Kurt asks,"It?" clearly worried, maybe even a little scared.

Blaine reaches over, takes his boyfriend's hand, and smiles at him, as they keep walking placing a kiss to Kurt's temple, "We'll figure this out."

But Kurt stops dead a second later, hearing Trent attempting to explain, "It was a cat in a pirate costume, out on the lake, on a little raft. It looked so terrified so we took our clothes off and got into the water, trying to save it. But by the time we reached the spot …," Trent stops shaking his head.

"There was nothing there, it was gone," Jeff continues, "and when we got back out, so were our clothes."

Kurt is still standing rooted to the spot, Blaine by his side, as the Warblers keep moving down the long hallway.

Kurt turns around to really look this time at the two boys kissing. Blaine is looking at Kurt - staring at the two still making out – with an amused smile, "You know we can do more than watch others. Kurt."

"Yeah, um, I know," Kurt stammers, blushing, this is all still so new to him, but also "… that's not it."

Before Blaine can say a single word more Kurt is right there, pulling the beanie off the guy's head, who is pressing the other with his full body into the wall while making out. Long dark hair falls over the guy's shoulders, "Santana?"

"Great," Santana snaps, rolling her eyes – the sound of a female voice in these walls instantly drawing the attention of the other Warblers as well, not that she is thrown off by that. "What now? Are you going to drag us off to your precious principal so he can bust our none existent balls for showing some lady love, like I know Figgins would undoubtedly do at McKinley! Well, tough break, there is nothing he can do, we don't even go here."

Kurt only really takes in half of Santana's rant, but he gets the point, despite after about two words, having been almost knocked off his feat by the blond girl in, by the looks of it, Trent's uniform, and a beanie of her own, throwing herself into his arms, with an excited squeal of "Kurt!"

"Why are you two here?" Kurt asks once Santana grows quiet.

"I wanted to dress like a dolphin too," Brittany says, beaming brightly, "Because Santana and I, we are dolphins too now, together, well, I might be a dolark, but anyway, Lord Tubbington insisted he wanted to help us. He loves dressing up as a pirate, so he said he could help. I was skeptical at first, but he helped us get these dolphin clothes by tricking two other dolphins into a swim. They must have seen his raft and wanted to play with it."

Kurt turns around when Brittany returns into Santana's arms a moment later, thinking nothing more than 'The usual madness.'

Now he kind of wishes he had not turned around at all, because apart from Blaine who has apparently been grinning like a fool at the scene all this time, having met the girls before, the rest of the Warblers stand there eyes and mouths wide, and Kurt feels somewhat intimidated by the thought alone of how much explaining this will take. 'Well, why not start with the simple stuff.' "Guys, these are my friends, Brittany and Santana, you might remember them from our competitions."

"But they are girls!" Thad pipes up. "In our uniforms! Why …?"

'So much for simple,' Kurt exchanges a look with Blaine, Blaine seeming to reply, 'Well, they are, … girls. You know that alone is like having an alien species around here.'

Then Blaine pulls Kurt in for a hug and a kiss because, gosh does he look like he needs those right now, Kurt breaking into a grin against Blaine's lips after a second, that Blaine aptly reads and answers with another quick peg to Kurt's lips, 'I am happy for them too.'

* * *

A/N: I have always wanted a very different coming out story for Brittana, one preferably involving Klaine and the Warblers, were no one is too hung up on the obvious. So here you have it :)


	10. Out Of Love

**A/N:** Short, sweet, and I hope despite that not void, not void at all of meaning.

* * *

**Prompt** (35): Ransacked

**Characters**: Kurt and Blaine

**Words**: 373

* * *

**Out Of Love**

Kurt knows it is still there, he just knows, okay?!

It does not matter, not matter in the least that he has pulled apart basically the whole apartment four times over already, "It can't be gone. It's not gone!"

Blaine would think they have been robbed while he was a t work, had it not looked the exact same way, 'Well, maybe, just maybe, a little less out of control,' when he had left this morning for work.

"Honey, have you foun…," but Blaine does not need to ask to know the answer when he finds his husband of 23 years sitting curled up on himself, legs drawn up against his chest, in one corner of their couch, crying, quietly, into a baby blanket.

"Babe," Blaine says, dropping his bag, shrugging out of his coat and shoes and walking over, curling up with his husband a mere moment later. "We'll find it. I'm sure."

"How can you be sure?" Kurt snivels.

"Because, Darling, you are way to caring a person, way to caring a son and a dad to have lost something so important."

"Is it important?" Kurt asks anxiously. "I am not just blowing all this out of proportion?"

"Hey," Blaine says, moving to tenderly cup Kurt's cheeks, softly caressing his features, features he has loved watching mature and after stay ever changing. "Hey," he repeats softer yet, Blaine's voice low and grounding, to Kurt, letting Kurt know Blaine truly does not only understand the importance of something to Kurt, but sees it too himself.

And hearing this to him telling tone in Blaine's voice Kurt lifts his gaze.

Blaine is met with the never changing only deepening love in his husband's eyes as he says to Kurt, "She knows we love her. Sara knows. But I want her too to have a reminder of that for the rest of her life, and we will find the necklace your mother left you, and we will give it to our daughter tomorrow when she graduates high school. And you know what else?"

Kurt shakes his head.

"She will love it."

Kurt breaks out into a wet laugh, and Blaine keeps caressing his husband's features as he says, "There you are."

* * *

A/N: EVERYONE ENJOY THE SEASON FOUR FINALE TONIGHT! :)


	11. Protecting you, Protecting me

**Prompt **(36): An Unexpected Goodbye

**Character**: You choose. Nothing else makes sense to me here. Maybe because I am too upset to see anyone but the person in my life I am actually writing about here. I hope that is okay, I really hope so.

**Words**: 442

* * *

**Protecting you, Protecting me**

It starts slow, almost imperceptible. I mean there are signs, it's just, it's just really hard seeing them, for the untrained eye. And so we miss them.

And suddenly, one day he is there, the other day gone. He hadn't thought he would be missed, and I hate that he was right in so much that it took us a long time to see it, to see this. To notice.

I walked in on him crying some weeks ago, just standing there in the kitchen. WHY hadn't I said anything? I should have said something.

It was his 21st birthday four days ago, and he has to start full adult life like this?! I want to hate someone for doing this to him. I need to hate someone, almost need it like air to breathe. Wouldn't it be just swell to believe in a god, any kind of deity really, right now. Following the rest of the flock unthinkingly apparently has its perks too.

I love him so much.

I have been such a bad sibling.

I should have known! I should have fucking NOTICED at least.

And I didn't. And I am hurt too, we all are. I hate being blind like this, HATE it. But I am ... blind to things, willingly or not, does it really matter?

He needed me, well, someone, someone who he could think to genuinely care, care about him.

Our parents haven't taught us that we should feel like we deserve to be cared about.

It is useless, blaming them, of course. I learned that a long time ago. Sometimes I think they are angry at us for blaming themselves. FUCK!

I don't want to admit that it was possibly, probably, just a matter of time ... with the way we did not grow up in that house, in all the ways we had to, too early.

I will see him again two days from now, for the first time since I learned he feels the way he does, feels unable to keep what others unknowing call mere sadness at bay ... at least enough to function.

They don't understand how deep it, this, reaches, how perfectly capable it makes you of crushing your own insides with one, any one thought.

I am scared. I cannot even dare to begin to imagine how he is feeling.

But I am so scared of him not being there when I stand before him.

I don't know if I can take seeing it, again, for the first time too, with him, ... another broken shell of a person I grew up loving so deeply.

I don't think I can take this goodbye.


	12. When I'm Feeling

**Prompt** (37): A new hair colour (My hair is orange, has been for about two weeks, so that's what brought this on! I love background information to prompts. How do you guys come up with yours every few weeks?)

**Character: **Blaine and Kurt (Season 4 – before Klaine broke up, let's just assume there was no cheating either while we are rewriting Glistory)

**Words: **629

* * *

**When I'm Feeling ...**

It is not exactly a plan, it is more an opportunity, he feels, that comes his way, unexpected. That is how it seems to him anyway, ... in the first moment; an opportunity for change.

Blaine does not think it through, or think much either way as he works the colouring cream into his hair. _'Kurt loves bold fashion statements,'_ is really the only thing that, and only once, crosses his mind.

Blaine will be flying out to visit Kurt two days from now, and he is just too excited to spend his nights sitting still, or sleeping; maybe that is reason too for him standing in his bathroom, at 2 am in the morning, hands covered in gloves, plastic gloves covered in this bright colour.

Blaine gets a few strange looks over the next two days, but really, what do people know? They look at him strange almost every day as it is, especially when he picks one of his more daring bowties to wear to school, or the supermarket.

Lately he has not been taking them off very often at all, has been picking them to wear, semi-consciously, on an almost daily basis and mostly those he had bought together with Kurt last year, after his transfer to McKinley had been complete and Kurt had been utterly high on the opportunities, so really these bowties are the most daring ones he has ever been in possession of.

Kurt is waiting at JFK, feet barely standing still as he stretches his whole body, balances on his toes, again and again, looking for that black unruly head of hair he loves so much, '...hopefully free of product.'

And free of product he does find it, just not black.

It takes Kurt, twice the time to find Blaine in the mass of people, pointedly overlooking the bright metallic blue head of hair, twice, until someone steps aside and Kurt finds Blaine's eyes, sparkling even brighter from under the bold colour. "Blaine!" Kurt shouts with a smile and a laugh.

Blaine instantly lets go off his bags and throws himself the last two steps into Kurt's arms.

After a kiss, broken several times by both boys grinning wide over and over against each other's lips, they stand holding each other some minutes more.

It has been almost a month after all, and Blaine can tell Kurt feels already more comfortable in his own skin than ever before.

"I'm never letting go again," Blaine whispers soft into Kurt's shoulder.

"Well you have to," Kurt whispers back through a wide smile, "I want to take another look at that gorgeous hair of yours."

Blaine buries his face in Kurt's shoulder, murmuring, "Is it that bad?"

"Hey," Kurt says softly, cradling both of Blaine's cheeks in his hands. When Blaine looks up into Kurt's eyes Kurt goes on, "Who said anything about bad? Different, sure, but that you have always been; that's so you."

Kurt's wide smile saying this, and kiss to Blaine's bright blue hair has Blaine smiling wide again too, in a flash.

Kurt's expression growing serious is the one thing that has always had Blaine going from groggily happy to dead serious too in a mere second, though this time not for long as Kurt hums happily, already running his left hand through Blaine's blue curls, "The only thing we need to talk about is matching your wardrobe to your new feature."

"Kurt?" Blaine says, grinning impossibly wide.

"Yeah?"

"I've missed you SO much!"

It takes them four more minutes to find their way again out of that next kiss, and get on their way to Kurt's new home, hands clasped tight and warm, ... all the way.

* * *

A/N: I really needed something warm and fun and happy in my life right now, so naturally, I wrote it. Acceptance, of us and the ways we change and try to figure things, us, out, is a most wonderful thing, especially in those we love and hope love us as dearly. So this is basically what I wish Blaine had done instead of cheat on Kurt. What a wonderful world that would have been, don't you think!


	13. Blue

**Prompt** (38)** : **Reinvention

**Character: **Blaine, Kurt, Wes, David

**Words: **1091

* * *

**Blue**

Their Skype dates were wonderful. They were long and helped with the loneliness at night, and they were full of laughter.

Kurt had new things to tell every single day, sometimes despite them having texted like mad through a day.

Blaine found himself talking mostly about Glee, school, his talks with Wes, who was now in his second year of college himself; Wes who had cut most ties back home, and Blaine could not stop thinking about it, about Wes, who had cut his tie to David. _'To David!'_

The thought made Blaine nervous, and in the beginning he had not really been aware himself why exactly that was.

It took an off-hand remark from Kurt about Santana – how Santana had just slipped away to her cheerleading college, and how he sometimes found himself wishing to know how she was getting on – to make things click in Blaine's head.

Kurt was changing, every second of every day. Growing by doing new things, and old things, in new places, every day.

And he ... he, Blaine Anderson was still just that, Blaine Anderson, former Warbler, New Direction member, student in a high school in Ohio, all the things he had been the year before, all the things he had loved being then, because they meant closeness, closeness to Kurt who had been all these things as well.

It had been all he had wished for after their first summer together as a couple, to keep sharing a life, to keep sharing their lives. In his mind it had never meant them having to be the same in any and every way.

That had never been them anyway.

But now, now seeing Kurt change, in all the best ways, Blaine always reminded himself, now there was that something in his throat that he apparently could not swallow, try as he might.

Blaine needed to do something, anything.

But he was here, and Kurt in New York, with that brand new life, with those brand new friends, and that brand new sense of freedom, and finally, with it, more peace, on Kurt's insides; all things Blaine had always wished for Kurt, was still wishing for for himself too, for them together, next year, in New York.

Blaine could see it growing, every day, in the eyes of the boy on the other side of the webcam, that quiet, a thing practically none existent when they had first met in Dalton's halls – having been brutally pressed out of Kurt's core, by his mother's early death and after, _'... the bullying.'_

That peace it was, too, a thing always there after they had gotten together and the nerves that had come with the first firsts had been conquered – first kisses, first dates, first time holding hands in public, first cuddling lying down ... on Kurt's bed. Blaine would never forget, _'Kurt's heart beating SO FAST!'_ under his careful first touch ... under Kurt's shirt, on Kurt's skin.

It was the wonder in Kurt's eyes, the happy wonder, something Blaine had known he had a part in, such a big part in bringing to life, Blaine is watching that wonder grow now, with love and happiness, with Rachel and others, in New York, ... without him.

"Kurt used to feel more alive because of me," Blaine whispers to himself.

And Blaine is happy for Kurt.

And Blaine is scared. For himself. For them. "Kurt is changing," the thought won't leave Blaine for days, haunts him every second his mind is not occupied, for almost a week.

Blaine reaches for his phone and dials without even thinking.

"Wesley Montgomery speaking."

"Wes, hey, it's ..."

"Blaine! Hi! It's been some days, how are you?"

Yes, Blaine is calling a lot lately. Wes has not missed the connection, Blaine has been calling a lot ... since Kurt left.

"I ...," Blaine's voice is kind of refusing to work, let alone sound the way Blaine wants it to.

Wes knows, because, Wes knows Blaine, they had grown close fast after Blaine's transfer to Dalton years ago now. "What's wrong?"

Blaine just kind of blurts it out, "David and you, why didn't it work out?"

"You mean, why didn't we stay friends, as close as we had been in school?"

Blaine swallows hard, croaks out a, "Yeah," his throat hurting with the dry sound already.

"Blaine," Wes lets out a sigh, stealing himself a moment to collect the words to express his thoughts racing.

Blaine had called Wes the first day Kurt had been gone, living officially in New York now. The call had been more Blaine crying and Wes murmuring soft reassurances that they could make it than a usual conversation. So Wes feels he has to ask, "Did something happen ... between you and Kurt?"

"No. Yes. Not really. I mean ..., Wes, he ... I ..."

Wes can almost feel the confusion thread through Blaine's words, "Blaine, you and Kurt are not me and David. First of all, and I say it although I know you know as well as I do, despite the fantastic rumour mill at Dalton, David and I never were more than friends, we were really good friends, really, really good friends, sure. But when I went off to college we both focused our energy, our lives, on the people right there with us. We hardly talk at the moment. It just comes with living apart."

"Kurt and I live apart, you and I live apart and we talk," Blaine says.

Wes can hear he is close to tears, "True," he says, "but our friendship has always been focused around that, talking about our lives, as for you and Kurt, you two have something David and I never had. You two are connected in a way we never were, and Blaine, you two are trying, so hard to be there for each other still. I bet you are even still skyping daily. You guys are really trying to uphold your friendship, your relationship. David and I decided not to. There was no hate or trouble or anything, just us, deciding. And I know, because you told me before, you and Kurt have decided on something too: Love."

Blaine is speechless to a degree that has Wes asking after a longer silence, "Blaine? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I ... um ..., I had never thought of it that way."

"Glad I could help?" Wes says with a smile that Blaine can hear in the former Warbler's voice.

"Yes, Wes. Yes, thank you, you definitely did."

* * *

A/N: So this is how I wish Glee had had Blaine handle Kurt's absence. And yes, I know, I am selfish, but I want me my Wesley Montgomery back! You cannot give a character a surname so perfect and then just drop him, unforgivable! Also, Tara, you mentioned in your review to the last chapter how you wished to have more background on Blaine's radical choice of bright blue hair. This was me trying to give you the back story to my last one-shot as I see it. I hope it is to your liking and satisfaction, especially.

xo M


	14. From The Outside In

**Prompt** (39): Set whatever you write in Season 2 (Well, any excuse to write more Warbler related Klaine stories, I am so in!)

**Characters**: Blaine, Wes

**Words**: 672

* * *

**From The Outside In**

That first kiss, it is kind of easy, once it had stopped being so hard to dare to even begin to think about how to talk to Kurt about, well, wanting to do that ... with him.

But then, suddenly, everything gets hard again. As soon as they have separated out of their second kiss, Blaine's heart starts skipping, and not in a good way.

As soon as Blaine has let go off Kurt's hand, having accompanied Kurt to his car and having watched him drive off with a smile, Blaine stops, while his mind keeps going.

Wes finds him standing there, staring into nothingness still twenty-nine minutes later.

Dinner is about to start and Wes had, passing by while getting a cd from his car, wondered about the boy seeming rooted to the one spot. He gently places a hand on Blaine's shoulder from where he is standing beside him, trying to figure out what Blaine might be looking at, if anything, "Blaine?"

Blaine's head turns slowly to the side the sound just came from, his eyes still fixed ahead, "Yeah?"

"You alright?" the boy asks, worry rising into Wes's chest.

"Not sure," Blaine whispers swallowing.

"Wanne talk?"

"Don't know," Blaine answers, a little louder this time, a little more certain of his own words it seems.

"What is this abo..."

Before Wes can finish his sentence he is interrupted by Blaine, "I kissed Kurt. We ... kissed."

"Oh," Wes has seen this coming if he is honest, most of the Warblers had, Jeff even jabbing on about it to everyone and anyone who would listen, in and outside the Warblers; Jeff's enthusiastic prediction met with smiles all around Dalton for the biggest part.

Yes, Wes had seen them getting together, sooner or later, but he had not anticipated this, finding Blaine so deep in thought, looking so full of worry, the day it had finally happened, "What's on your mind?"

"What do I do now? I mean ..., he ... I ... we ..."

Wes interrupts with a smile, "Yes? You? The two of you ...?"

"He is ... I want to ..., he ...," Wes almost jumps out of his own skin when Blaine finally starts moving again, running a hand through his hair, letting out a heavy sigh before the words, head hanging, voice torn, "I can't end up hurting him. I can't! I am so bad at this."

Wes's face falls as he moves to hug Blaine tight. "Bad at what?" he asks as he holds a deeply sighing Blaine tighter.

"I can't hurt him. There is too much already." Wes does not have to ask of what, he remembers all to well that first day he had met the then so much sadder boy. "I want him to be happy, and I am just so bad ... at romance. He loves romance." Wes almost misses the last words whispered so quietly, "I wish he loved me."

Blaine frowns, head hanging as soon as he feels Wes pull out of the hug, a single hand still on Blaine's left shoulder, moving onto Blaine's upper arm a moment later, squeezing gently.

"I don't know how to be a boyfriend. I have NO idea how to be a boyfriend."

Blaine is met with his best friend's smile when he looks up. "What?" he asks, voice small.

"I told Jeff it was a silly idea, just yesterday, but if you two stay this oblivious to how much you mean to each other and how easy it is to see for all the rest of us whenever we are around you, has been for weeks FYI, then we will _really_ need to start secretly taping you two and turn it into an anniversary gift, or something, some day."

"You can tell from just looking at us?"

Wes just blatantly grins at Blaine now, "You would not _believe_ the amount of time you two spend staring at each other when either of you thinks the other won't notice. Well, the rest of us do!"

Blaine lets out another sigh, mixed with half a laugh this time, lips shifting into a smile as he looks back down onto the parking lot ground, hand running through his hair messing it up further.

Wes is grinning too, still, "You are so crazy about him."

"I am."


	15. Unfold

**Prompt** (40): Everybody has got a secret ... but what happens when it all comes out?

**Character**: Kurt, Burt, Blaine (So I went old school season 2 canon on this brilliant prompt; thank you pionaskateboard!)

**Words**: 605

* * *

**Unfold**

"Blaine?"

"Kurt? What's wrong?" Blaine can still hear the laboured breathing on the other end of the phone, changing suddenly into sobs.

"He knows. Oh gosh, he knows! What do I do now? I can't ... I ... I can't. His heart, he looked so pale ..."

"Kurt, shh. Shh. Who knows what, Kurt?"

"My dad, he knows Karofsky said he'd kill me, if ... if I told anyone he ... he kissed me."

"Where are you right now?" Blaine asks jumping right past the part of his brain screaming at him _'He did what?!' _But there is this other part screaming even louder already, _'He needs you!'_ There will be time later to figure out why Blaine is only hearing about this right now.

"Parking lot. Lima Bean. He's so upset." Kurt sobs out with a broken whimper.

"Hey, Kurt, no, shh, shhh. He is not upset with you. You need to know that. You know that right?" Blaine may not know much about Kurt yet, less about Burt, but the way Kurt talks about his dad, Blaine knows Burt cannot possibly be angry at Kurt in any way right now. There is no answer from Kurt though, so Blaine goes on, "I can come. Do you want me to come?" the boy already heading towards the Dalton parking lot, forgetting completely there even is a Warbler rehearsal starting in twenty-four minutes.

"Please," the one word from Kurt's lips is enough for Blaine, it is too all Kurt can bring out.

"I'll be there as soon as I can. Wait for me, okay? Please?"

"Yes," Kurt says, and then someone hangs up, neither boy sure who actually hits the button first.

Kurt waits, curled up on himself in the driver's seat, legs drawn up and face buried in his arms, resting on his knees, phone discarded on the passenger's seat.

It is how Blaine finds him over an hour later.

Blaine feels the fist tightening in his chest as he spots Kurt looking even smaller than usual, fragile, already broken and left in this heap of pain. He does not want to scare the other boy, but Kurt might not even be awake right now, could easily have cried himself to sleep. So Blaine, heavy-heartedly raises a hand, and knocks on the windowpane. The fist tightens again in his chest as he has to watch a red-eyed Kurt's head fly up and the whole boy's body jump in fear.

A moment after he has seen Blaine the car door is flung wide open, Blaine almost having to jump back. "Blaine," it is all Kurt can bring out, voice raw.

Blaine is afraid he is overstepping, but he also kind of cannot bring himself to care right now. Kurt looks too much like Robin had, sitting broken on a hospital bed the morning after the Sadie Hawkins Dance, eyes cried so red from more than just the pain of bruised rips, and a leg broken.

And Kurt winces too, just as Robin had, as Blaine surges forward and wraps himself around the boy, Blaine putting himself between Kurt and the world too big and cold and so damn scary today, too empty of love and too filled up with the promise of more pain at every turn.

And gosh does Blaine know he is overstepping right now, they barely know each other, but by the way Kurt is gripping back at him, opening up into the embrace the world has denied him for so long, has denied both of them so many times, Blaine is sure, _'This is the right thing to do.' _

"Thank you."


	16. Fight

**Prompt **(41)**: **Music in all of its forms is illegal. Singing and the use of instruments is highly punishable. What lengths does your character(s) or club go to to perform? Or do they choose to live in a world without music? – What a kick-ass prompt Tara621, THANK YOU!

**Characters:** Kurt and Blaine (I know, how unexpected from me. Am I beginning to bore you? I hope not.)

**Words:** 1194 (I'm afraid I went way over the limit this time. I point to the amazingness of the prompt; how could I not write more than just 500 words for that?!)

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**Fight**

'Why did I say yes?' Kurt thinks as he walks down the dark corridor towards the door leading to the parking structure build for visitors to the school, most students just use the open air parking spots directly in front of the school, and so does Kurt. To this day he has never set a foot in here.

His own breathing is ringing heavy in his ears as he stands rooted to the spot in front of the heavy dark gray door. He can just barely make out the silver glint of the handle.

Kurt lets out a heavy breath then a little shriek as the door starts to open before him.

The hefty door is pulled wide open, a greyer darkness filtering into Kurt's, before a boy steps half out from behind it.

"Blaine," Kurt does not even care how relieved the familiar eyes on him now make him sound. 'Blaine,' after all is the reason '... the reason I am here.'

The boy with the, usually, bright smile and, today, wild curls looks more solemn tonight though as he gestures for the other boy to enter the space far too large, possessing too many, far too many dark corners for comfort.

Kurt almost feels like he is panting now as with every step his own breathing keeps filling his ears, keeps filling the deadly silent air, the sneakers on both boys feet merely causing a muffled echo to spread as they start walking.

Kurt can feel at ease in his sweatpants and simple shirt and hoodie when he is at home, alone with his dad on a Friday night after dinner watching a movie, when he is spending a lazy Saturday on his bed reading magazines or crafting a new outfit listening to the rhythmic clicking of the sewing-machine missing ... missing so much.

Maybe that had been what had him saying yes so easily to Blaine's invitation to join – some outlet for the pent-up energy that keeps trying to drive him crazy in his own skin.

Kurt chances a quick glance at the boy walking beside him, hoodie a minute ago still down now thrown over his head, curls again hidden like they often otherwise are under a different kind of covering.

Kurt jumps and tenses when he hears other doors leading to the parking structure creak open ... then closed again.

He almost jumps right out of his skin though when he sees other hooded figures emerging, all heading seemingly for an agreed on spot in the building.

Blaine stops and turns to face Kurt, "Shhhhh." Kurt must have let out some kind of horrified sound without even realizing it. What he almost lets out when Blaine reaches over ends up a swallowed back gasp as Blaine carefully pulls Kurt's hood up around his face, allows his hands to both linger at the seams of Kurt's hood, finally letting go with a soft hum that reminds Kurt all over of what he is missing so much, has him think of how wonderful the other boy's voice could, no, would sound, if only they were allowed ...

Kurt swallows hard, is thankful for the first time tonight for the darkness, covering his blush, as he realizes he has been starring into the other boy's eyes for all this time. "Sorry," Kurt mouths, lips moving shakily, Blaine answering with a warm smile.

Kurt has to bite back another yelp as Blaine's hand reaches for his, and then the pace of their feet quickens. Kurt almost trips, twice, his eyes keeping reverting to his own hand securely wrapped in Blaine's bandaged one.

Blaine pushes the door all the other hooded figures seem to be streaming towards too wide open, pulling Kurt inside before letting it slip closed again.

Kurt, before he registers what really is happening finds himself following Blaine down a set of stairs and through several corridors only dimly lit by emergency lights. If it was not Blaine here with him Kurt would be seriously freaking out by now here in this parking structures cellar, and Kurt cannot help the thought, might ask the boy beside him if Blaine was not so intent on quiet, 'Why does a parking structure even have a cellar?' There are so many garage size doors they are now passing by though that Kurt can only assume the answer to be storage of some kind, most units seemingly empty with the doors wide open.

Finally, Blaine stops in front of one of them, knocks, Kurt almost does not trust his ears, the opening cords to 'Teenage Dream.' It is an old song back from the times when music still had been part of everyday life. It is a song every child still knows. It seems impossible to eradicated from the ever growing web, otherwise strictly policed. This one song is just hidden in too many files encrypted already a long time ago in ways not many of the enforcers seem to understand at all anymore.

When the garage door opens to Blaine and him Kurt just stands gaping, but Blaine is still there, holding his hand, pulling him inside a second later, the boys sitting down together on one of the many couches.

For the next fourteen minutes Kurt just sits and stares, studying the posters on the walls, as more and more people arrive, wide smiles revealed on their faces as hoodies are thrown off in deep-seated relief.

Blaine had told him it was a fight club, and so Kurt had just assumed ..., the bandaged hand Blaine had greeted him with convincing him even further he had understood correctly.

Blaine smiling widely at the friends surrounding them, exchanging a fair few "Hello"s and "Good to see you again," turning back to look at Kurt finds the boy still just staring in disbelief, hood still covering his head, darkening his features.

"Hey," Blaine whispers softly, coaxing Kurt to turn to face him. Blaine reaches up like he had before, this time lifting the hoodie carefully off Kurt's head, carding his hand twice through Kurt's hair to fix it for him. "There, all perfect again."

"It's a FFMC? A Fight For Music Club?" Kurt asks in a whisper of his own.

"What gave it away, the instruments filling up the space or the old concert posters?" Blaine asks with a smile. "I knew you would feel at home in here as soon as I saw the Freddy Mercury inspired everyday clothing you make."

Kurt breaks out in a real smile for the first time in more than just tonight, and Blaine can only smile back just as bright as Kurt looks down, bites his lip and lets out a soft chuckle, his shoulders moving with it still as Blaine's right hand comes to rest on Kurt's left shoulder, squeezes softly, Kurt looking back up at the touch filling him with inexplicable warmth.

Wes's voice is sounding through the small storage unit already when Kurt and Blaine's hands find each other again, moving from holding to being gently intertwined, connection warm and strong, "Welcome to this November's first FFMC meeting. I'm Wes, the founder of ..."


	17. Lima

**Prompt** (42): A moment that changed a life forever

**Character**: Blaine

**Words**: 629

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**Lima**

He had not even planned to come here. And being here, frankly, does not ... feels anything but right.

People are hard for him. Being around people is ... hard.

Often, and he frequently hates himself for this – which does nothing to help either – the happier the people are the harder it gets.

He does not really want to blame anyone at all, but he wishes, right here and now, he wishes so hard he could blame someone outside himself. _'It could make everything so much...,' _no, not easier, hate is never easy at all, but ... _'but, it could make everything so much less painfully destructive, self destructive.'_

His parents do not know where he is at.

They did not stop him, or come after him when he had rushed down the stairs, and past the kitchen into the hall, finally into the open, crisp air.

There had been leaves on the ground as he had started to walk, and then just kept walking, and there had been the smell of last night's rain still hanging in the morning air.

Blaine though had not really taken in anything early autumn had been offering him.

He does not feel much at all these days past the dull ache in his leg, the doctor insists is fully healed.

Blaine still feels the pain, with every step. It was there last month when he first walked onto the Dalton grounds, last week, when he tried out for the Warblers, after several long evenings of his new friends and him just sitting, talking, learning about each other more than just the classes and teachers they share.

'_Friends,' _it still feels like such an abstract notion to Blaine, not a reality; people who know him – people who know him and want to be his friends because of it, not despite it.

He knows it is ridiculous, walking around the streets of Lima in his Dalton uniform, wrapped extra-tightly into his scarf and coat, hair slicked back.

It makes him feel safe.

It allows him to feel safe in a place he does not know how to feel safe yet.

Since they have moved he has spent most of his time in bed, recovering, "...healing," he whispers to himself, doubt creeping into his thoughts, his voice, Blaine ducking his head and rounding the last corner that will take him straight to the Lima Bean.

Everything outside Dalton feels strange, dangerous, even home, his parents' silence towards him eating away at Blaine.

Blaine is standing in the coffee line, _'... only two more people ...,'_ and then there will be some warmth in reach, some warmth to sink into his bones. Blaine is only realizing the chill he has walked through the last twenty minutes, as he is standing still in the warm coffee shop, his leg aching again. It always hurts worse when he stands still, he has come to learn since he joined the Warblers.

When the other body hits him Blaine is on the ground within seconds, breathing heavy, bracing himself on both his hands.

Then someone drops to the floor beside him, "I am so SO sorry."

Blaine expects to find a young girl beside him when he makes himself look over, frankly he thinks it is the only reason he could move at all.

The person looking back at him looks young, but definitely no girl.

"I am so very sorry," the boy says again with eyes soft and pleading, _'Scared?'_

And only now does Blaine look past him, only now does he take in the two big guys standing there in red letterman jackets, faces contorted into hate-filled smirks.

It is an instinct, grabbing the other boy's hand and then ... running, running until the pain subsides again.

* * *

A/N: I needed an alternate Klaine meeting for this prompt, closer to the attack on Blaine, and when Kurt was so broken and lonely, too. I so wanted both of them to have someone then, so here I went, giving them just that.

To my fellow writers: Some of you already know this, I am insanely busy right now, so I might not be able to write much until the second August week, but I will keep prompting with you guys and do my best to catch up as soon as possible.

Love, M


	18. I've Gotta Be Me

**A/N: **Hey guys! I am so sorry I have not reviewed more of your work yet. I don't want to rush it, and really be able to take my time, write reviews that actually give you something. I hope you can bear with me a while longer.

I just really feel the need to write at the moment, let out some of my pent-up thoughts and feelings as I am guessing a lot of us feel, especially these days.

I dearly hope you are all well, fellow writers and readers, and know if you want or need to talk, I am here.

I love you guys! M

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**Prompt** (43)**:** the hill-top tree by the gated ways

**Character:** This could be any male character really, I think, I see it most though as Puck, or Finn, or Kurt, or Sam, even though I had sat out to write it as Blaine (but I think Blaine is really just my go to character when I am at the outset not sure where my story is going). I think it turned out as** Finn** most though, probably season 3 lost or maybe more confused feeling Finn. I have named this one shot after my favorite Finn performance ever, and I think it really fits wonderfully, and I dearly hope you think so too.

**Words:** 484

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**I've Gotta Be Me**

He comes here when he needs to cry, and he needs to cry a lot ... lately.

... and, most things hurt thinking about. He is not stupid, as some people like to see him, think of him. He just does not like to think, for that very reason, it feels like he is hurting himself, too much of the time, "... and who does that," he murmurs to himself, "on purpose," ... hurt oneself, not if they can avoid it, "... no one would," he feels sure about that much.

It is like setting one foot in front of the other has suddenly become the hardest thing in the world, and his mind, his mind feels stiff and cold. Because he knows it is not the people, not what they are saying, but the way his head refuses, suddenly, to wrap itself around anything he hears anymore.

It is like his head has run off, and is mindlessly chasing ... something, far too far ahead of him to keep up, and there is nothing to hold on to.

So he comes here.

So he gets up every morning when his side of the world is still fast asleep and breathes in the only cool air any of these summer days has to offer, and tries, tries so hard to get a hold of himself, to focus.

It feels good, it feels right, and it is the only thing that does these days, for weeks piling up to months now, climbing, climbing the gate, made to keep in or out he is not sure, and then climbing that hill.

He would climb the tree at the top if he was not so afraid of his thoughts straying and having him trip ... fall. Climbing is one thing, ascend or descent, falling is a completely other, an accident, no intent, no ... control or say in anything.

He feels like he is falling all day long, slipping through his own fingers again ... and again.

There is no high in falling, only the moment you hit the ground, and then the pain, giving you, yes, a moment of clarity, but ripping away all else left.

He is late today, it was already twenty past four when he had gotten up, and so as he sits down in the grass and moss, growing on and around the tree, wonderfully and irritatingly cool and ... soft, he already knows he will miss them all day, those minutes he will not be able to spend here, to sit and breathe, watching the first rays of sunshine illuminating the already light but until this moment dull sky.

He is not looking at or for anything in particular, no one is asking him to. It is his favourite part, his favourite time of the day the moment before humanity steers awake in a world already alive.


	19. Family

**Prompt** (44): Vacation

**Characters**: well:)

**Words**: 527

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**Family**

It's not my dream vacation ... but it's alright.

My favourite part about this vacation? Definitly my dad. My dad being here. It had not always looked like he would be.

But he fought, tried his hardest, did, well, everything right, well, ... everything as best as he could.

He picked the wrong colors the day of the doctor's appointment, or so I'd thought.

I'd never thought I would ever be the one to say it, and Blaine laughs so hard every time I only begin to express my discontent, but my dad has kind of become a health nut.

How else am I supposed to explain this change in him, dragging Mom, Finn, Blaine and me out of bed every morning at 6 for a sunrise walk, as dad likes to call it. "You can ever only see so many suns rise in your life," he said only yesterday. Finn of all people being the one to point out with an eye-roll that, "Dad, actually it is always the same sun." Dad had replied with no more than a broad smile, happier than any of us had seen him in so long. It had always been the doctors' appointments, it seems now thinking back, having to drag himself there over and over, trying to keep hoping, that had torn away more at him than the illness itself, while we had been doomed to be helplessly watching him put up his best fight. I am so proud of him.

It is so good to have my dad back. The dad I remember from when my mom was still alive.

Our mom is walking by our dad's side, smiling just as he is, when Finn, knowing soft grass and a picnic breakfast is awaiting him after he has taken the next turn, five more trees ahead to the left, seems to have finally been shaken awake by the cool morning air, still more than two thirds that of the night actually, tranquil, clear.

"Last to the meadow is a baby," Finn takes off. Dust is still stirring the air where he just stood when I feel Blaine's hold on my hand loosen, my husband of two months taking off after his brother in law with a grin on his face I can only imagine, looking at the curls on the back of his head, but am sure off.

Carole and Burt slow down a little and walk the rest of the way side by side with me.

Finn and Blaine are already spread out on the grass when we reach the spot they have settled down in.

Framed by trees we are overlooking a valley, parts of the green see of vegetation still draped in white clouds like crystal clear waves broken on an invisible shore.

I settle down into my husband's side.

He leans over and brushes a gentle kiss into my temple, murmuring "Baby," as we both watch the white gaining a pinkish-orange glow, magenta.

"As long as I'm your baby that's fine by me," I reply smiling at him.

"Always."

It is not Kurt's dream vacation, but it is definitely better than alright.


	20. Perception

**Prompt** (45): Perception

**Character**: Ryder

**Words**: 335

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The terrible thing is ... you kind of grow used to keeping things in, keeping everything in.

"It's not like anyone will care. They don't now, why would they ever?"

You have a hard time remembering that maybe, just maybe it is because you have not told them ... anything.

It has been years, after all, and they still do not know what was done to you.

But that voice inside of you won't, just won't shut up, telling you over and over still that, "You don't deserve to be cared about."

And so Ryder is trapped, locked in, inside his own head. His limbs do not feel like they are there to carry him about, carry him somewhere that is not here. Instead they feel like those extra weights hanging from his core, pulling down the rest of him that others are not pushing, holding down yet.

The day he gets his tattoo he feels like he can finally breath again, with every stab to his skin, every tiny new scar made and sealed off with colour, ink, in the skin he feels nowhere near at home in, he feels something healing.

Maybe not the big wounds inside but there is this shield forming, surrounding him, and when he passes the mall on his way home he knows just how to complete it, how to feel strong inside the skin that had been tainted long before ink ever touched it.

He stands grinning in front of his full-length mirror that night, brown eyes glistening brightly out from under the purple hair with blue streaks falling into his face.

As his favourite song of this summer comes on the radio he starts dancing around his room. And he does not stop until his whole body is humming with the relief of exhaustion that - he knows just now already - will bring him a sound night's sleep.

A full night's sleep, there was a time when that used to be no more than a dream of his.


	21. It isn't what it looks like, I swear!

**A/N:** I love weekends, whoever invented those, genius! Finally some peace and quiet to read and write.

I won't pretend, I am so nervous about posting this one-shot, because I just suspect some people might hate it, or think it highly implausible. It is these moments, when a plot-bunny like this hits me that I love our writing group most, for you, my wonderfully open-minded, lovely fellow writers, help me be brave enough to put this out here. I dearly hope there will be some love for this little story idea. And thank you so so much for the wonderful prompt that inspired it.

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Prompt (46): "It isn't what it looks like, I swear!"

Character: Ryder

Words: 614

* * *

The first time Ryder did it he was simply curious, wanted to know what it feels like, what it could possibly make someone feel ... doing this. He still is not sure.

It is so confusing, to him. And maybe, just maybe _'...maybe I'm so angry at him, her, because, because ...,' _because it confuses Ryder so very much – because, he thinks now, without Unique intending to, it makes him question parts of himself, she makes him, has him ... thinking.

Ryder hates it when people make him do anything.

That time his dad made him take harder classes at school because _"You are just not challenged enough, Son." _

And that time his mom made him try out for the junior team in her tennis club, when his hand-eye coordination just does not work for him ... in that way. Finn understands that, _'... why can't my parents?'_

Ryder is different in his own ways, and it is not like his surroundings let him, allow him to forget that all that often. Glee club is better than nice, but it feels also like a constant reminder.

And then there had been not just glee club but Wade, and then Unique and Katie and ... his confession, about his past, to his friends and then, too, his parents.

He is really glad it is summer break right now, and he is staying with his older sister in Montreal, because somehow he needed to get away from all that.

Part of those changes to his life though have stayed with him, are seemingly always there.

Ryder cannot stop thinking about Unique, about how hard he had fallen for the _person_ on the other side of that screen.

'_Katie, no, ... Unique,' _cares about him, _she_ _'knows me, understands me_ ...' And Ryder is scared to death of what that might mean. He just cannot figure out what it says about him, what it should tell him about him, the way he feels about her when he allows himself to.

So Ryder, one day, alone in his sister's apartment having stared at the wardrobe's content for already twenty-nine minutes had tried ... tried to start at the other end of it all, not him, but her.

It is about two weeks later and maybe the dozenth time he is standing there in front of the mirror in his sister's bedroom when he, sunken in thought completely misses the sound of the front door being opened and then ... closing.

"Ryder?" his sister says, standing there still in the doorframe, the door itself still only half opened, but Ryder knows he himself is already fully on display.

"It isn't what it looks like, I swear!" Ryder stutters out, unable to even so much as meet his sister's eyes again.

The remark is soft, and Ryder can hear the well-meaning smile in his sister's voice without looking up, the kindness of familiarity, "So you are not wearing one of my favourite summer dresses?"

When Ryder eventually does look up he is met with a soft, questioning look, "I'm not ..., it's not ... It doesn't mean ... Urgh!"

"Hey, hey! Shh," his sister says, stepping forward and embracing her baby brother. Holding him tight she whispers to him, "Whatever this is, Ry," he looks back up at her at the loving nickname only she uses for him, and that has _always_ meant safety, "it's okay," and then she wrinkles up her nose a little, playfully adding with a wide smile, "except for the fact that that sundress is about three sizes too small for your frame."

"Shut up," he squeaks and swats at her shoulder before hugging back tightly.


	22. Shards

**Prompt** (47): A key (canon) part of your character's storyline DIDN'T HAPPEN. (Think Artie in Glee Actually.) Write the resulting AU.

**Characters**: David, Blaine, Kurt

**Words**: 920 (Yeah, I got a bit carried away with this. Wow, I could have written so much more on this.)

* * *

**Shards**

"Hey! ... Hey, David! Wait up."

"Blaine, hi," the boy replies with a bright smile, "What's up?"

"Have you picked a song for Glee yet? You know, to cheer up Brittany."

David's smile grows further, "I've actually found the perfect one."

"That fast?" Blaine asks as the boys keep walking down the school corridor.

"I called Santana and asked her. Seemed like the most promising thing to do," David shrugs.

Blaine though can see the spring in his step, the pride in who he is, and that he can be clever, in glee club and an openly gay football player, even if he only got there by repeating his senior year. What is one year in exchange for a life, _the life_ you had not even dared to dream of before, never really.

With the support system he now has, the friends, his over the summer freshly divorced dad, who knows him, and still loves him – with all these people in his life, David finally feels like he can do anything he puts his mind to.

"Smart move," Blaine smiles. "See you at lunch?"

"Sure."

_Several months earlier ..._

Blaine is sitting in the choir room, practicing a piece on the piano, marvelling at how much easier it is with two healthy eyes. Only a week after getting all of his sight back it still needs getting used to.

In thoughts, it takes him a moment to notice Kurt's phone buzzing on the top of the instrument.

Kurt had left his phone on the instrument when he had gone to the bathroom a couple of minutes ago, grabbing a can of hairspray from his schoolbag, wanting to fix his hair up a little after the long school day, and with the moist winter weather still going strong that _"...just won't stop messing with it,"_ Kurt had said to Blaine before disappearing from the room with a smile that Blaine had returned before turning back to the piano.

"David?" Blaine murmurs before he, only hesitating a moment, picks up. "Hello?"

"I'm so sorry, SO sorry, Kurt. I'm so sorry."

"Um ... it's Blaine."

There is a dense silence quickly building between them.

Blaine can still hear David's sobs on the other end of the line, and a whizzing sound that has him worrying more, "David?" Blaine goes on as the silence holds, "Kurt will be right back. He just went to the bathroom. We are at McKinley, where are you?"

There is still no answer only harder more hectic sobbing.

"Please talk to me. David, you're sca..."

"David? Karofsky?" Blaine is broken off by Kurt, coming back in the room.

Blaine nods, holding the phone away from himself adds, "He's crying, sobbing actually, and I think he is about to hyperventilate. But he won't talk to me."

Kurt hearing the intense worry in Blaine's voice, seeing it even clearer in his features, taking a deep breath to compose himself motions for Blaine to hand him his phone.

After another beat of utter silence, "Dave?"

"Kurt?"

"What's wrong?"

"I'm so sorry, so SO sorry," Dave splutters out, and Kurt can hear it too, what Blaine must have heard, the whizzing sound cutting through the words. "Hey, shhh, shhh. Dave, please calm down. Remember that week before prom last year?"

Kurt hears a faint choked of squeak and assumes it to be a yes, because frankly, what else can he do.

"I forgave you then, when you were in the _Bullywhips_ and walked me to that classroom and cried and told me how sorry you were. Dave, I've forgiven you a long time ago, but ... I cannot be your boyfriend. I have only ever loved Blaine that way. You need to understand that."

"Yeah," Dave brings somehow out, "I do," but he keeps sobbing.

And only then Kurt realizes, "That is not why you are calling is it?"

"No."

"Dave, what has happend? Did someone get hurt, did someone die?" Kurt asks carefully.

"They ... they," and there is that whizzing sound again, "... They want me to die," David rings out of his throat.

Kurt's face suddenly drains of color and Blaine is holding his hand, squeezing it warmly within seconds, asking silently.

"_The blond asshole outed him,"_ Kurt mouths to Blaine, eyes watering up.

"Shit," Blaine says, holding Kurt's hand tighter.

When Kurt seems frozen for a moment, unable to think of anything to say, Blaine gently coaxes the phone out of his hand, "David? Do you want us to come and get you? You can stay with us for a while, we'll figure things out. Remember what I said to you the first day we met? In that stairwell."

David only makes a broken questioning sound in answer.

"It's still true: You are not alone. You DON'T have to do this alone."

There is sudden quiet on the other end, and for a moment Blaine is only more scared, whispers apprehensively, "David?"

"I'm at home. Parkerlane 4," he breaks off again then, "... please hurry. I don't want to do this. ... I don't know what else to do."

"I'll stay with you on the phone, while Kurt drives us to your place. Parkerlane 4," Blaine repeats for Kurt's ears and to keep Dave engaged. Pulling Kurt into a hug before they head for the parking lot, Blaine keeps talking all along, "Talk to me David. Tell me what you need to get out. Anything."

"Why does it hurt so bad? Why does _everything_ hurt so bad?"


End file.
